Cameras are now rolling on Toronto filmmaker José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço’s debut feature Young Werther.

The film is an adaptation of the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. It is written and directed by Lourenço, and produced by Toronto’s Wildling Pictures.

Filming began in Toronto on Wednesday (May 24) and wraps at the end of June, Lourenço tells Playback Daily. 

Matt Code (See for Me), Julie Strifler (Easy Land), Natalie Urquhart (Suits) and Charlotte Lytle (This Time, with Feeling) of Wildling Pictures are producers. Mason Novick (Juno) of MXN Entertainment serves as executive producer.

Young Werther is produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada and Ontario Creates, in association with Ashland Hill Media Finance. Toronto-based levelFILM is attached as distributor.

Young Werther stars British actor Douglas Booth and Canadian actor Alison Pill, and also features fellow Canuck Patrick J. Adams and Iris Apatow in lead roles.

The film draws on “Goethe’s passionate personal accounts” and stars Booth as a young man “who finds himself at the mercy of” Pill’s character, who is engaged, according to a news release.

Lourenço said adaptations are “always a bit tricky” but Young Werther doesn’t “feel daunting in any way,” in a statement to Playback Daily.

“The challenge and the fun of it with a historical work, for me, is how to retain the essence and relevance of the source text while making the story and the characters relatable and enjoyable to a contemporary audience. With Young Werther, I hope I’ve struck the right balance between honouring the original writing and producing a new way to consider a work that’s endured for 250 years,” he said.

Pill is represented by The Burstein Company and CAA.  Adams is represented by CAA, The Rosenzweig Group and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis LLP.

Photos: Alison Pill (left) by Juanito Aguil/Getty, Douglas Booth (right) Jamie McCarthy/Getty.